#the gelatin drop? yes. just yes

[yoursassybookwormfriend]

Guys I GOT THE FRENCH GRAPHIC NOVEL!

It's true, it's only part 1 of Nevermoor and I'm still learning how to actually speak french, but it's SO COOL!

[fromgoy2joy]

Let's write about Jewish characters in dynamic ways- that make it clear "Yes this is us. Yes, we are living our lives with this happiness and ritual, and we love it. "

Like it's so easy to write about, to have casual observances of Judaism and cultural practices be in the background of stories. I'll write of the few examples I can think of in my frame of reference as a college student-

there's a mezuza in the doorway of a college kid's apartment. Whenever his friends come over, it's a reach for some of them to touch it because both he and the rabbi who installed it are 6 foot three. The others feel like a middle school boy slapping the ceiling as they try and reach for the damn thing.

Characters rush on public transport to get to a rabbi's house on shabbat. The train is due. There's a flurry of regrouping, then trying to call a missing friend to get there, and then the process of methodically hiding Magen davids and jewish objects because getting to shabbat dinner without a situation was an order from college Hillel staff.

A character is half-drunk at 2 AM at the convenience store but has to scan the list of ingredients on their chemically disgusting snack for gelatin.

Said character is prevented by her friends from only sustaining herself on 7/11 slushees "even though it's all kosher!"

There are references to the Purim incident constantly- it is never clarified what happened on Purim.

the hypothetical gang of characters are in the middle of nowhere on a grand magical adventure. The main character notices a mezuza on a door of a cabin, knocks on it, and has an in-depth conversation with the resident. Then, he waves his friends over. "Hey, guys! We have a place to stay tonight!" Because through the magic of Jewish geography, it was discovered that the grumpy old Jewish man in the woods is the grand uncle of one of his Jewish Day school teachers

A character who eats cheesy bacon bagels regularly on passover has a deep respect for jewish ritual items. He kisses the siddurim as they're handed back into a pile, he always kisses his kippah that he wears for ritual purposes of shabbats and minions. He's very careful with these objects and keeps on claiming dropping something He is observant, and he cares so much, but not in the "typical" way. Just... please show the nuance in practice.

The big "going out night" for our fearless college student isn't Friday but saturday night because of shabbat.

The stain on the rabbi's couch is not to be mentioned

A character keeps on mentioning the stain anyway.

Jewish goodbyes after any event take a minimum of two hours and that's why the gang is delayed on their journey to save the world .

I want more representation than characters in novels saying "haha I'm jewish but eat bacon and love Christmas!" in such flat ways. Please feel free to add more hypothetical ways of representation in the comments !!! About or inspired by your own life and experiences ! Let's make this post vibrant!

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Gooigi (again)

Debut: Luigi's Mansion (3DS)

When I was playing Luigi's Mansion 3 for the first time, I was thinking, "I sure love Gooigi. I wish I could write a Weird Mario Enemies post on him, but we already have one..." but I now realize! That post was written before the release of 3! We had no idea! No idea.

Who is the Mario character with the most fleshed-out backstory? Is it Mario, with his monolithic catalogue of media appearances? No, the insight we get into his past is simplistic at most. Is it Rosalina, with her beloved storybook? She comes close, I will admit, but there is someone who comes closer! Can you guess who it is? Can you guess the character I am hyping up in the post with a big image of Gooigi at its forefront? Yes, you can! It's Gooigi.

Indeed, Gooigi has seven entire pages of lore from the official website, written from the perspective of E. Gadd himself, explaining his origins, how he does what he does, WHY he does what he does, everything! You can read it here, and I'm not going to waste time repeating what was already said. I will just paraphrase: Goo is made from coffee mixed with ghost energy. Gooigi is the result of Luigi's digital data being zapped into it for a default form. Gooigi was sent back in time to Luigi's Mansion 1 for training and research purposes, and is now stored in a canister in the Poltergust G-00.

Got it? Good. Here is Baby Gooigi. How precious! Back before he had any Luigi in him at all. This is Goo in a human-shaped mold, and you may notice the mold itself has no face. Baby Gooigi learned how to express agony all on his own! It's no wonder they took a photo of this milestone!

Now with Super Mario Bros. Wonder, we have TWO gelatinous Luigis to choose from. And why not both? Gooigi is a separate entity, so Gooigi and Wubba Luigi can coexist! But not always... when playing Luigi's Mansion 3 single player, Luigi and Gooigi must be controlled separately. Luigi is able to will his consciousness into the doppelgangreener to control its movements, and it's here that it gets extra weird! Weird to the point that this game basically has multiple possible continuities?

Gooigi is NOT scared of ghosts, at all! He is an anomaly to them! This is very much "distinct character" behavior. But how is this the case if Luigi wills his soul into Gooigi? Well, both concepts are kind of true at the same time! As we can see here, cutscenes will actually change depending on if the game is in single-player or co-op play, portraying different events! Really really weird! It's like if Schroedinger's Cat was a pair of funny green men, one with bones and organs, and one translucent. So what is the truth...? (Spoilers for Luigi's Mansion 3 ahead...)

In the ending, even in single-player mode, Gooigi is portrayed as his own sentient character! Even though this contradicts the "consciousness transfer" lore, I think this is the "true" intention for him. It's much more fun and less awkward if he can be active at the same time as Luigi! I also don’t think they care that much about minor gameplay features being lore-compliant, since Polterpup got pupils in the end of the second game, and those were removed in 3 without explanation.

Unfortunately, as the hotel crumbles after King Boo's defeat, Gooigi falls from the top floor and dies.

He even says "bye-bye" before the fall. I can't believe this. How could Nintendo allow something so upsetting? They thought it was okay to let Gooigi say "bye-bye" rather than "goo-dbye"? That has "goo" in it! It would have been perfect. (I am not actually upset by this at all and "bye-bye" is more in character)

After splattering on the pavement he reforms, because duh. He's goo. You can test this for yourself! Scoop a glob of mayonnaise out of the jar with your hand. Next, travel to the top of a skyscraper. Finally, drop the mayonnaise off of the side! When it hits the ground, it will not have died. Science Fact!

As silly it may be, I was a bit worried Gooigi might die for real, even though that wouldn't make any sense to happen. I was just thinking of modern Paper Mario, introducing new buddies only to take them away by the end. But I should have known that Luigi's Mansion is not at all like that! This is the series where they gave Luigi a dog, and that was that. We don't see Polterpup as often as we should, but it cannot be argued! Luigi has a dog. What would stop them from keeping Gooigi around? Nothing, that's what! He stays with E. Gadd, and is not going anywhere!

Just like Polterpup, I would love to see Gooigi more, though. I would love for him to be Luigi's answer to Metal Mario! Gooigi driving a kart! I don't care that he dies in water, and I don't think Nintendo would care too much either. I would like to leave you off with The Big Question. This is a new, distinct character, who is "genetically" similar to Luigi. As such.

[drewsbuzzcut]

Shower sex with model and mat🙏🏼

Warnings: smut and unedited

Your back gets pinned to the cold shower wall, and your legs wrap around Mat’s waist to keep him pressed to you. And to keep you upright. He’s pulled many orgasms from you, so your legs are way past gelatin.

“Just like that,” you moan and throw your head back. His hands grip your hips as he ruts into you relentlessly.

You think you’d be cold being that your wet body is pressed up against the cold wall, but Mat’s body does a great job at keeping you warm. The hot water still falls over him, and with every thrust, the water gets splashed onto you.

“You like that, pretty girl? You like my cock filling you up?” He asks, heat and a sexy raspiness to his voice. It sends a harsh chill down your spine, making you jolt and his tip nudging your sweet spot harder.

“Fuck yes! You feel so good, Maty,” you whine, body already shivering in his hold.

He attaches his lips to the hollow of your neck, sucking and biting the skin as his cock continue to stretch you open. Your slick walls flutter and suck him in before he can even fully pull out. He doesn’t mind being sheathed inside of you, and having you make a mess on him. After many orgasms, it’s only expected to have your release dripping down his balls.

“I know you’re close. Cum for me, baby.”

Mat grips your waist with both hands and bounces you on his length. Your stomach tightens in a knot, your toes curl, and a loud whimper rips from your throat as you succumb to your release. You shiver and clutch onto Mat’s hair. Your limbs tangle around him and the flutter of his cock pumping his cum inside of you sets you ablaze.

“Fuck. Oh my god,” he groans, the suction of your pussy around him milks him for every drop.

The shower stream has cooled down, hosing the both of you of the sexual heat you’d previously been doused in. You catch your breath and take a glance at your man. He’s art. His hair is damp and is a mess of curls on his forehead. His chest heaves from exertion, his lips are swollen, and his chest is flushed.

“I love you,” you pull him closer (if that’s even possible) by your legs around him.

You caress his cheek and seal your lips to his.

“I love you, pretty girl,” he mutters into your mouth.

[searsage]

"I am unharmed Robin, Ryley is not psycally capable of injuring my vessel without aid of appropriate equipment." Al-an admitted quickly, hoping to sooth her nerves, but easily he could see Robin was beyond placation..

"Yeah, well you seemed damn well ready to knock his damn head off! He must have struck some nerves…" His human snapped, he could almost taste the high levels of cortisol on her breath..

"…I would not have killed your human companion-" Al-an began carefully however this admission mearly pulls a sarcastic scoff from the irate researcher.

"Are you sure about that? Or do you need to examine the shreds in my arm?!" Robin scowled exasperatedly, still Al-an was quick to agree to this offer even if she was not being literal…

"Yes..please allow me to assess the damage I inflicted, I would have tended to it myself-" his plea is of course met with rejection..

"No, I already took care of it." It was clear the haphazard bandages clinging to her arm were ineffective in stanching the blood blooming accross its once white fabric.

"Vary well…" Al-an agrees, but only for the moment, it will still need need to be accounted for..but Robin was unwilling at the moment, pressuring her further would only result in her coiling tighter..

"The best thing you could have done was leave.." Robin stops to just breath, no doubt the his stressed companion was experiencing the drop of her adrenaline and with it the pain..

"We have more immediate things to worry about." Her clipped reasoning stings but mostly because he recognizes she was right, his temper had already needlessly sacrificed so much precious time…

Al-an's gaze drifts to the blood splattered egg, the pungent scent of his human's blood was not the only one filling the room..

"You said you could help, well what's the plan big guy, this little one won't last the night if we don't come up with something, I have some ideas but…" Robin sighed, her gaze now trained on the breached egg..

"Of course, place it here." Al-an agreed quietly, stifling the despair surfacing across his carapace, they needed to work fast.

This close he could finally access the damage properly, the protective layer of the egg was seemingly gouged, the gelatinous albumen protecting the fetus breached and torn as well, much fluid had escaped due to this wound.

[mordenheim]

We can fix this, I know we can

Thuras sighed as he leaned back in his chair. What kind of life did he have now? He was used to going up into the mortal world, cutting deals and buying souls, not trapped behind a desk processing paperwork. He stood up from his seat, stomping through his office on hooved legs, snarling in anger every time his great horns scraped across the ceiling.

He was just about to head down the hall to harass Stillwinter again when he froze. He felt something he had not felt in ages. A tug, that felt like it came from somewhere inside of his skull. It went from a tug to an insistent pull and he was being dragged back against the wall of his office.

“What in the hell..?!”

A green, almost gelatinous looking portal opened in the wall behind him and he was slowly being dragged into it. He gripped at the back of his chair, dragging it with him, but it slammed into the edge of the portal like it was still solid wall and dragged out of his grasp.

He was dragged through the void of cold nothingness for a time, then suddenly it was like his head was thrust into boiling water. No, his head WAS thrust into boiling water, or boiling something! He let out a roar as he rocketed upwards through what felt like a narrow tube of scalding water only to crash into a ceiling and crumple to the floor. He stunk of sage and chicken, limp pieces of pasta stuck to his muscular upper body. He snarled as he got to his hooves.

“How?” He turned and saw a small female human cowering in a corner and knew that he was called by her. “HOW DID YOU SUMMON ME?!”

She trembled and cried in return, “I don't know! You were supposed to be chicken soup!!”

He blinked, looking down at himself and at her. Was it possible? Could he really have been summoned to this realm by mistake?

He snarled and stomped around through the kitchen before his eyes fell on a book on the kitchen table. He picked it up in his hands and looked at it closely. It felt familiar somehow. Opening the cover it read “Property of Elanis Moorgrave”.

He almost dropped the book from his nerveless fingers. “Elanis. I remember her... I was her familiar for almost a century.” He turned suddenly to the cowering female, “Do you know Elanis Moorgrave?”

She let out a shriek and tried to dig her way back through the wall behind her in a panic. Shaking his head, Thuras took a deep breath and calmed himself. His voice became low and soothing as he spoke again.

“Hey... I'm not here to harm you. Are you a blood relative of Elanis Moorgrave?”

“Y... yeah... I'm Ellen. She was my great, great grandmother.”

“Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I suppose you were trying a recipe from this book?”

“Yeah... I uh...” She sniffled, wiping tears from her eyes, “I was trying to make chicken soup..”

He chuckled. It was a warm, soft sound that Ellen felt deep in her chest. Slowly she pushed herself back up to her feet and grabbed a towel, offering it to him. “You say.. you knew my grandma?”

Taking the towel, he tried wiping a bit of the mess off of himself. “Yes, she and I were very, very close. She used to try disguising some of her spells and summoning rituals as recipes and home improvements.”

Ellen nodded, looking up at the muscular demon. She swallowed hard and murmured softly, “I uh... have a shower you can use if you want to get cleaned up. It's down the hall tot he left.”

“Thank you, Ellen Moorgrave.” “Please, just Ellen.”

“And I am Thuras. A pleasure.”

Ellen watched as he made his way down the hall, his broad back almost stretching wall to wall. She swallowed hard and shook her head as she started cleaning the soup up off of her floor. She had just finished making a pot of coffee when he returned, polishing his huge horns with one of her towels.

She poured two cups and offered one to him, which he accepted graciously.

“So, I summoned you accidentally. What does that mean, exactly.”

He hmmmed and settled down in one of the kitchen chairs. The wood groaned under his weight, but held as he crossed his goat like legs in front of him. “I'm not exactly sure. Normally I am bound to the person who summoned me until I have completed the task I was summed for, but I have no idea what will happen now.”

“So.. You just... Have to stay with me until we figure something out? Or do you just go back where you came from?”

“I'm not really sure, but we can fix this, I know we can.”

She sighed and leaned back in her seat, sipping her coffee. She hadn't had a man in her home in years and now one literally just fell in her lap and he's not even human. Of all the weird luck. “Well, I suppose you can make yourself at home for now, as long as you don't go summoning more demons without me knowing.”

“Perish the thought. Thank you for the coffee, by the way.”

“You're welcome. By the way, you said you knew my great great grandma. Could you tell me a bit about her?”

Thuras laughed, “Oh, I have such tales to tell you...”

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

ok here they are. did i get overly emotional over idfb fear garden and spend all my free time making a gigantic firealpaca file with drawings about it? yes.

these comics are so whiiitttttttttteeeeeeeeeee but whatever i am not opening my 4000x4000px two year old document again just to try and add backgrounds to it

transcripts under cut bc there are so many of them

gelatin, sad in a hospital bed with his arms bandaged: i’ll never be able to flip anyone off now….. fries, holding him: oh is that all

ruby, sobbing while various other characters stand around looking uncomfortable, with subtitles that say “[Ruby]: sadly dooting ‘Pumpkin Hill’” (snapscube sonic 06 dub reference. sorry. it lives rent free in my head)

coiny: whatcha got there? pin, holding a smoothie and dragging a blindfolded bomby who is bleeding quite a lot: a smoothie

tennis ball: we are going to perform an autopsy on the body book: i don't believe that man's ever been to medical school (tangentially related comic) golf ball: golf ball: oh she dead folks offscreen voice: thanks genius

fries, worried, holding flower’s face in his hands: flower? flower, blood dripping out of her mouth: Hey there, hotstuff! fries, dropping her: Die Then >:|

firey, pointing to a sign that reads “Do Not Enter Quarantine Area”: uh, do you people know what QUARANTINE means?

[joe-spookyy]

Any tips on how to cosplay Undead Jack Goodman

( context plan on going to a Halloween party as him )

actually yes!!! i’ve gone through a fair bit of trial and error on this one so let me give you some tips!!

here’s how i did it.

so. first. the makeup.

you will need

- cotton balls/pads

- liquid latex

- scar wax (optional)

- paper towel tube

- tissues

- red base makeup

- eyeliner pencil of some sort

- fake blood

- black/brown/yellow/purple makeup

so, first, you’re going to want to block out the shape of the injury. i usually just draw it out with the eyeliner pencil (using a reference of course). you’re going to want to go all the way down your neck to the collar of your shirt and as far back to where your hair falls on your neck. if your hair doesn’t hit your neck well. then follow your heart. then, you’ll follow the guidelines you’ve put down with cotton and liquid latex to make it raised. you’ll want to tear up the cotton balls/pads and roll them into thin strips with your fingers. you can make them as long or as short as you want. i usually make them pretty short though, so it’s easier to make sure they follow the lines. once you’ve rolled them, you can place liquid latex over your guideline, and then stick the strip on. if that doesn’t make sense, check out my video tutorial and also the one i attached at the end. then, once you have that, you can start adding texture. i usually put one piece of scar wax on the side of my cheek like here. it should look somewhat like this (but with stuff on your neck too.) this is also the stage where i start attaching little pieces of tissue in shreds to my face with liquid latex to simulate the little floppy pieces of skin that hang off.

next, you can add the fake windpipe! for this, i cut a toilet paper tube in half and then adjust the size until it fits comfortably over my throat. you can attach it with liquid latex, then cover it with another piece of tissue to make it a little more seamless and use liquid latex again to hold it down.

now, you have to go in with the color. start with a red base, then add yellow and black highlights, with a little bit of purple if you’re feeling bold. but don’t use too much purple. then, go absolutely insane with the fake blood. the most important thing is to respect the lines you made before, cause in the movie all the wounds are isolated to one side of his face.

to modify this for the later stages of decay you’d want to use a green base for the rest of your face and use less red and more of the darker colors in the wounds. you could create texture on the rest of your face with liquid latex i think to sort of simulate the shriveled look but i’m not super sure - i haven’t tried anything past the initial fresh hospital look. i’d look up a few zombie makeup tutorials and see if you can figure anything else out!

i based all of mine off of this tutorial, so it might be a helpful watch if you’re confused at all.

next, the coat. i really wanted the blood to look fresh, so i had kind of a hard time finding fake blood that would work. most of it dries and soaks into fabric, and since the green coat is dark, it just ends up kinda looking like it’s been stained with an unidentified liquid. so i decided to make my own. i mixed gelatin powder, water, and corn syrup with food coloring - mostly red, but a few drops of blue to get a darker more bloody nasty look. in terms of amount, you just kind of have to follow your heart. then, i poured a little over the shoulder, let it drip, then laid it down and did some spot treatment and made sure the coverage was even and there was enough. i’d recommend doing this maybe two nights before you’re going to need the costume - it takes a while to dry but if you let it dry for too long it’ll start to crack when you move. however, it’s the only way i’ve figured out to keep the blood looking fresh. if you want, you can also cut holes in the coat in some places to match how it is in the movie, but i’ve found it honestly doesn’t need it.

then you’re pretty much set! get some dark jeans and hiking boots and boom. you’re jack. would love to see how your costume turns out!

[artemistorm]

One word prompt: licked

This one is a fun one--it reminded me of a thing I used to do as a kid--lick my hand and hold it up to ward off my siblings.

(1301 words)

******

"Let go of the rupee," Legend urged. "You can't get your hand out of the hole unless you let go of the rupee. Your fist is too big."

"NO!" Wind hissed, his hand trapped in a hole in the wall, his fist wrapped around a glowing golden rupee. "My rupee!" His eyes were red and crazed and his entire arm was tensed and stiff as if electrified. It didn't take a genius to tell that the rupee-in-the-hole was clearly cursed and intended to be a trap, one that the strapped-for-cash little pirate fell for.

<!-- more -->

"If you let go for just a second, I can use my whip to get it out of the hole for you," Sky pleaded.

"And take it for yourself? I don't think so!" Wind lashed out with his free hand, fingers bared like claws when Sky got too close for his liking. "This is my money. I found it first! Its all mine!"

"Don't touch him and don't let him touch you," Four warned.

"What can we do?" Twilight asked. "We can't reason with him in this state."

"You shouldn't have let him open that cursed chest full of rupoors earlier," Warriors nudged Legend. "Maybe he wouldn't have fallen for the trap if he still had any money."

"I warned him not to!" Legend spluttered. "Maybe you should have been quicker to stop him before he reached his hand into a random hole!"

"Wiiind!" Hyrule sang holding up a silver rupee just out of his reach. "Do you want more rupees?"

"Careful," Time put a hand on Hyrule's arm.

Wind surged forward as much as he could with his arm still trapped in the wall. Hyrule leapt back and dangling the rupee just out of reach.

"Give it to me! I want it now!" Wind made grabby hands and strained to reach the silver rupee. "More rupees!"

"Let go of the other rupee and you can have this rupee," Hyrule said.

"NO! I want both rupees! Gimme!"

"Wind! Let go! You're going to break your arm!" Twilight cried. "Hyrule! Give it to him so he doesn't hurt himself!"

"Yes! Give it to me!" Wind growled.

Hyrule panicked and flung it at Wind who caught it faster than the eye could follow with his free hand. He laughed maniacally and dropped the rupee in his pocket.

“Great that didn’t work. Now what do we do?” Warriors sighed.

“You look rich! Give me all your rupees!” Wind demanded of Warriors. “They belong to me!”

At the back of the group there was a sound of lips smacking and Twilight turned to find Wild idly licking off each of his fingers.

“Eww! Cub! What are you eating?” Twilight grabbed Wild’s hand. His hand and his mouth were covered in green gelatinous substance. “Ugh! Spit that out! How could you be eating at a time like this?! What even is that nasty—”

“Hmph. No’ bad.” Wild said then swallowed. “Tastes like cuckoo.”

“What even is this?” Twilight wiped some of the green gunk off his hand and on his pants. Wild shrugged.

“Dunno. I bought some off a guy in Wind’s Hyrule. He called it a jellyfish, said it was something you didn’t want to eat unless you were in a desperate situation—and we’ve been stuck in this dungeon for three hours and I’m pretty desperately hungry.”

“Seriously?”

“Do you have any more?” Time asked.

“Yeah! You want some?” Wild held up another green glob with long thin tentacles hanging down. Time made a face and accepted the disgusting offering.

“Old Man, what are you—” Twilight trailed off.

“Ahhh—” Time inhaled sharply. “Ahhh—!”

“You good, old man?” Four asked, turning away from Wind.

“AAAAHHH CHOOO!” Time sneezed mightily with such volume that the sound echoed down the stony corridor. Everyone flinched and jumped, even Wind, who had a fistful of Warriors’ scarf.

Time looked down at his hands where the crushed green remains of the jellyfish dripped from his hands.

“Augh!” Sky gagged and covered his eyes, trying not to heave.

“That’s disgusting!” Legend stepped away from their elder

“Did that just seriously come out of you?!” Four gasped.

“What the hell? Do you have the plague??” Warriors jumped back, yanking his scarf from a startled wide-eyed Wind’s grasp.

Time sniffed the green goop in his hands.

“Hmm.”

Time touched his tongue the green goop. He made a show of taking a long slow lick the length of his right hand.

“No! No! Don’t do that!” Sky squealed and waved his hands. “Ahhh!”

“OHH! That’s just gross!” Warriors looked away and covered his mouth with a gag.

“Is this really happening?” Four asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the spectacle.

Hyrule watched simultaneously appalled and perplexed and Wind stared in horrified silence.

“Mm. Salty,” Time said licking his lips.

In the back of the group, Wild stifled a laugh and Twilight covered his mouth with his hand his eyes wide with glee.

Time cocked his head at Wind.

“Are you stuck, young friend?” Time asked. He casually approached Wind, the others jumping out of his way.

Wind didn’t answer but bared his teeth.

“Let me help you!” Time reached out a green slimy hand toward Wind’s stuck arm. Wind squirmed and pulled away from Time.

“Don’t touch me!” Wind scowled. “You smell poor.” Wind strained to lean away from Time.

“It’ll just take a moment to get you unstuck!” Time’s hand stopped just short of grasping Wind’s arm. “Oh! There’s something on your face!” He reached for Wind’s face with his green gloopy hand.

Wind screeched and jerked backward, arm suddenly free of the trap. He fell onto his behind then scrabbled away on all fours hissing at Time, who watched him with cool amusement. Wind’s face went blank for a moment, then he blinked confused up at all the other staring heroes.

“What’s going on?” He said, then winced and curled around his arm. “Ow.”

“Here, let me see,” Legend pushed past the agape Hyrule and knelt by Wind.

Time held up his hands for the others to see.

“This is jellyfish,” he said. “It’s not snot.”

“Hehehe I get it. It’s-not snot.” Wild snorted.

“And you’re right. It does taste like cuckoo.”

“I can’t believe it. You really got me, Old Man!” Warriors laughed.

“Wow. I’m so glad that’s not real.” Four shivered.

“Wahaha that’s so funny!” Hyrule burst out in laughter. “I didn’t know you had it in you!”

“I know you said that it’s not real, but… I think I’m going to throw up anyways!” Sky pushed past Wild and Twilight and threw up on the ground at the edge of the corridor.

“Hey Wind, how’re you feeling?” Twilight called edging away from Sky.

“He’ll be fine,” Legend said helping Wind stand up. “His arm isn’t broken and there’s no residual damage from the curse.”

“It’s just bruised and sore,” Wind said, inspecting the red marks on his skin where it had rubbed on the rim of the hole.

“I hope you learned your lesson,” Legend crossed his arms.

“I bet you won’t go sticking your hand into any more holes, will you?” Warriors said.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Wind said patting his pocket. “I’m a hundred rupees richer!”

“Wait! No! That’s mine! Give it back!” Hyrule reached for Wind’s pocket.

“Buzz off, slacker. It’s mine! I deserve it for my troubles!”

“That’s not supposed to be the lesson that you took away from this little experience!” Twilight groaned.

“If I help you get it back, will you give me half the money?” Wild asked Hyrule.

Time stepped away up the hall a little ways and poured a trickle of water from his canteen to clean off his hands and he laughed and laughed quietly to himself.

[the-ultimate-pie-family]

Copper top encounter with surprise jr pie part 11

"B came in with copper new armor plates." Hey, sugar, you awake yet? don't look at me copper. Please, i need these measurements to see what I need to fix, "copper groaned as she felt naked without her armor on" surprise jr where is he? I'm out here.....fuckin robot bitch.... quit crying uncle you lost fair and square "surprise jr teleported into the room with hell fire above his head like a halo" i don't cry my niece I get even "surprise glared at copper with hell fire rage in his eyes" just wait copper I will be free again. Yeah right your mine and my gf bitch and I'm the main pimp now go so I can get my measurements bitch. "Copper tilted her head in disrespect to the devil surprise teleported away." Get my measurements, please B I have to get my bitch in order. Oooooo copper, I never knew you would be a pimp. Neither did I, but I won that fight, and I'm not losing my grip on the devil either. "B got her measurements and started work on new armor plates while copper was writing down places and artifacts needed work on" hmmm "in a few minutes B had her armor plates done and started using magic to place them in" ok copper your golden "copper hugged B" Thank you B your a life saver don't worry about copper just knock my uncle down a few pegs ok? I will "copper smiled teleporting outside" surprise?! Go eat your gf. "Copper face started heating up, turning her cheek red" s-shut up...... blow me bitch! Follow me bitch i have artifacts for you to test artifacts my kind of artifacts? or my big brother artifacts? What's the difference goat boy keep pushing your lucky you slug I'll make your hell worst what I'll do to you up here "then the fourth strongest demon came to challenge copper to free surprise jr" you mortal bot I challenge thy to free my lord prepare thy asshole mortal "surprise jr stepped back and watch the show then the demon went to punch copper then she stopped the giant attack then upper cutted the demon then she drags the demon to a gelatin and chopping it's head off killing the demon" fourth strongest demon my copper metal ass bitch with me NOW! "Copper yelled at surprise, then dragged him to some satanic artifacts test them now you bitch go fuck your gf. Should I kick your ass? "Surprise, Jr. turned hell red as the devil took control, fixing his hoodie. " surprise is cooling down, my lady, and you are? im the devil....... "The devil dropped from getting low blow" bring back my bitch fucker before I make you my bitch too "surprise jr took control" really a nut shot? Daddy!!!!!!!! "Surprise, Jr. turned shocked seeing his daughter leyas here." Daughter, go home. I'm busy, but dad mom is worried you have been home in month. Who's this Surprise? My daughter, the devil's daughter, called her. Oh, I'm sorry. "Then leyas teleported closer to her dad so your beated my dad huh? Yes, ma'am. Did you almost win, Daddy? Yes, I had her half dead, and then she tackled me off the cliff she was lucky she "survived" 'surprise was pissed he still lost but he must honor the code' but untill I'm free I can't return home yet dammit mom won't come up tho it's cold up here. I know, leyas. im dressed for this coldness, but stay with mom. I'll be home later, ok? Ok daddy "leyas hugged her" you better be nice to my dad bitch or I'll come get you myself.

'Copper didn't know how to react but dragged surprise to some more artifacts while leyas teleported away' sorry for my daughter copper she over protective of me. it's fine, surprise. I kinda know how you feel. I bet you are you stupid robot bitch

To be continued

Mod pie: morning story for copper top i can't stay up anymore maybe we'll see if I can stay up

Tag: @ask-coppertop

[biolizardboils]

heres a semi-liveblog i did while playing The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog! spoilers under the cut (both for this game and Frontiers!)

“We designed the difficulty of the THINK levels for experienced Sonic fans [...]” finally...a worthy opponent

look at this cute little new employee!! im naming them Barry like in the trailer. them and the Forces Avatar just need one more member and they can form Team Self-Insert!

the Conductor is a big doggy!! oh hes retiring aww,

The Mirage Express, huh? i thought i saw a place that looked like Mirage Saloon in the traileSPAGONIA MENTION!!

okay im not gonna say the menu’s instant ramen is absolutely a reference to the 06 fandub, but i struggle to imagine what else it could be

so they eat Pickies, but eating Cluckies is apparently too far? filing this under Important Lore Implications /j

everyone’s outfits aaaaa;;;;

IT’S AMY’S BIRTHDAY!!! CONGRATS GIRL I LOVE YOUR CAKE HEADBAND AND FUR BOA

“(Why can’t I be normal for one second...)” Barry calm down, your unorthodox yet charming response got you a wink and thumbs up from Sonic the fucking Hedgehog! id be over the moon if i was you

someone already left their ticket in a napkin holder, can’t have shit on my first day

Important notes on Barry: is intimidated by Knuckles, Espio, and Shadow, is Sparkle Gelatin Buddies with Tails, somehow cannot recognize Sonic in the flesh, and bows for royalty like Blaze

Wait... the train's robot arms look like something Eggman would make... Mr. Conductor sir...?

Why is Butcher!Vector stationed in the library and not like, the kitchen lol. And also why’d he and Espio leave Charmy at home

Amy proceeds to explain the rules of Among Us

Tails is disqualified from being the murderer, for he is both Detective and Babey

At long last... the token evil Flicky

uhh why’s the train shaking

DID WE CRASH??

Amy refusing a chance to use her hammer...?

the stick behind her was def her hammer’s handle, wonder how it broke

how on earth can a Crack on A Shelf fit in someone’s inventory

how did that minigame help Barry think of an argument dfghj

oh the hammer she broke was a Great Value backup, thank god

the dead Sonic illustration still sends me hwoling sdfghj

i muted the game to play this real quick and now im laughing even harder

wait sonic can talk but he’s numb and can’t move. no longer laughing

he’s got wounds?? and NO PULSE??? oh my god theyre actually fucking doing it

TITLE DROP?? YOURE TELLING ME THE GAME DIDNT START UNTIL JUST NOW??

what did Omochao do to warrant a wanted poster

Not Knuckles using Ye Olde English for his Sherriff rolefghjk

Omochao is wanted for medical malpractice??? sure why not

okay im gonna stop logging everything and just play for a bit. will type again if something REALLY funny or shocking happens

ooh the bg changed in the Think minigame! reminds me of Earthbound

everybody’s leaving they gotdam post, can’t have shit with this group

id let Barry tell me all about caves

all the options to get rid of the bomb gdsffhgjhkj thank god it wasn’t ACTUALLY a bomb

got caught up in the game but aaaa i hope Amy and Shadow have fun at the Hot Honey concerttt

the blowdart in the conductor’s car... what is it filled with, i wonder... a paralyzing agent... or poison

HE’S STILL PARALYZED/DEAD OH NO... the game didnt give me the option to tell anyone about him but i still feel like an asshole aaaa

aaand now im laughing again SFDGHJ Amy what do you MEAN by that????

wow, im actually not sure who did it! the robot arm was specifically sliced through, so i imagine it was someone who could do that without a weapon. Vector could’ve bitten it, and Shadow could’ve used Chaos Spear... neither of those culprits seem right to me, but it’s all i got

ESPIO. idk how he did the slicing cus his shurikens wouldve been confiscated but he can camouflage why didnt i think of that

okay the camouflage didnt even come up in the accusation but still

SONIC’S ALIVE YAY

can you imagine if he’d said this when Mephiles killed him bhkvads

I FUCKING KNEW IT. TRAIN’S HAUNTED

wait the token evil Flicky is real AND relevant to the narrative??

oh thats legitimately creepy

oh thats even worse (even tho i still think hes eggman in disguise)

okay ngl id have followed these instructions to the letter too. its an autism thing, your honor

TRAIN’S GONNA KILL US OKAY

I’M BACK IN THE DINING CAR WITH SONIC, HI SONIC!!! WE’RE GONNA DIE BUT ILU

holy cow i can’t believe there’s STILL more to do?? the production values....

SONIC NEVER GOT TO SEE THE PRETTY VIEWS NOOOO;;

E  G  G

eggman has no tolerance for self-insert oc’s :pensive:

it’s canon now that Badniks have competitive wages sdfghj

oh no Barry... your self-deprecating dialogue options are worrying me buddy...

!!!PEP TALK??? SET TO IT DOESN’T MATTER V2???

Sonic my best friend Sonic.....you’re right. we can do this

so between this and Frontiers i think this decade’s gimmick is gonna be “silly minigame actually prepares you for the final challenge”

“Don’t teleport us to the future!” Barry how did you correctly guess an event that happened in a destroyed timeline

Ohhh the Train’s mad that the Conductor’s retiring isn’t it?? lemme just plug a video real quick kjhgfdsa

IM FIGHTING THE ACTUAL TRAIN NOW OH MY GOD

this is fucking TOUGH HELP

THAT LAST PART TOOK ME LIKE 20 TRIES AAAAACK

“Your happiness comes at the expense of others. Last I checked, that’s called being selfish.” Tell ‘em, Sonic

100 rings??? have mercy

FINALLY HOLY SHIT

ESPIO SAVES THE FLICKY TO ATONE FOR HIS CRIMES

WAIT DID AMY BLOW THE TRAIN UP WITH EVERYONE INSIDE??

awww;;

oh no Train......

AAAWWW;;

god Barry’s been flabbergasted by this group the whole game dfghjk. is that how civilians tend to think of them? cus its hilarious

nobody even ate?? Barry didnt even get to do his ONE job mndbhksa

SONIC FINALLY BOUGHT THE CAKE YAYYY

“To the confident, unshakable, and radiant Amy Rose!” WAAAAAUGHG;;

WAIT WHAT ,BVJKSFHL??

“...And that’s the story of how I met Sonic and his friends. Entangled in their lives for a fleeting moment, and then back to things as they were.” Living the dream, huh, Barry? I mean, besides being jobless again

oh wait we can choose their epilogue!! i made them stick with the job, practice their singing, and manage to fly to space. as a treat

holy shit that was WAY longer than i was expecting!! every aspect of this was exquisite--scenario, art, characterization, jokes, gameplay challenge?? holy shit

oh hey i guess some people got that Sonic Lore job after all!! congrats to them too!!

I think the moral of this is that sometimes the best April Fools’ jokes are the ones played completely straight, with much more than a simple lie behind them. and also don’t trust trains

[mattydemise]

I've never been a weekend person but recently I'm finding the most purpose on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. When the bar is alive and it’s just me and a near endless list of drink orders, I feel vital. Talking to patrons, flirting, and being engaged in good conversation. I push my body before work. The workouts are gruelling and I either start or end a workout with close to an hour of boxing. My back and shoulders in particular are transforming, getting thicker and tighter. The muscle is hard earned. It still feels as though I need to do more though, find new limits to push for. Generally, putting size on a tall frame isn’t easy and anyone tall that lifts will tell you the same thing. I have fitness goals in mind though, I have a certain physique that appeals to me above all else, and most importantly, my strength and conditioning must be functional. There’s no point being absolutely fucking massive if you have terrible cardio and can’t run around your block without facing death itself. I think back to the centuries upon centuries of warriors that trained and honed their bodies even without optimal nutrition and “poor living conditions”. In reality were their living conditions that bad though or is it simply the fact that these cultures lived so differently to the modern Western man that it’s difficult for us to imagine living that way? I know it’s the latter. Society has softened and weakened us. I know this. I think back to that old anarcho adage, “You want to improve society and yet you still participate in it?” It’s easy to critique that mindset, after all are we expected to drop out of society and govern ourselves? I say yes. I say fuck the hierarchies of institutionalised power. I say fuck those that seek out power like moths to the flame. I don’t seek power, I seek total freedom. I wish to live as I please and be only accountable to myself and my own sense of honour and integrity. I’m tired of living according to the wills and whims of gelatinous, overbearing, weak men. Men in cheap ill-fitting suits that lounge around and treat other human beings like pawns on the global chessboard. I’m not just some figure on a spreadsheet or a statistic to be brought out and used to illustrate a point. I’m flesh and blood and I’ve more drive and will, than in the entirety of Parliament. I’m clearheaded and completely lucid. I’m not beholden to anyone and I’m not rendered useless and docile by some disgusting fucking habit. Moreover, I don’t need a fucking gun to prove how much of a threat I am to these established ideals. I’m charismatic and intelligent, capable and strong, in other words, I represent the converse of virtually every elected official in this country. You should fear the amount of burden I can carry, the weight I can hold on my ever strengthening shoulders. I’m no politician nor am I a boy, I’m a man. Fear the men that have the will to seize the world within their hands and cradle it like a newborn. Let’s lay siege to the institutions that wreak havoc on this planet, let’s become the sworn enemies of the human blobs in power, and hold a vendetta against the foundations and fundamentals, that’ve corrupted our cultures and societies. The time for change is now, and change doesn’t come when men and women wearing symbols of peace join hands and sing about revolution, change comes when threat is imminent, violence is swift, blood is shed, and the weak men that hijacked this world are brought to their knees and forced to submit. The age of weakness is over, and the age of strength is here once again.

[mellowquint]

The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog Liveblog!

Part 1; the Dining Car

OKAY WE'RE FINALLY DOING THIS READY, SET, LEGO (wait wrong fandom–)

So insert character is first time working for the train huh, okay cool cool

Oh god now i have to name them uhh (yes i will be referring to they/them, non-binary characters ftw)

… I went with Trainee (get it cuz uh train and yeah I'll see myself out)

Darling your scribbles are fine, better than mine actually

Trainee is a nervous train wreck *ba dum tss* yeah ok I'll stop making train jokes

Oh dang here comes the conductor. Apparently todays the conductor's last day after thirty two years.

OOHH THE TRAIN IS CALLED MIRAGE EXPRESS

I like how the sonic crew didn't forget about spagonia Jejdkddlfkkdkfk thought that was a one time thing

The menu only has 3 things, Why? lmao

Wait they're ALL MICROWAVE MEALS?? Can't they afford a chef? This is someone's speaking who has not gone onto these fancy train cars yet so forgive me

Oh fun tidbit the trains actually used for event's only.

"So I'll need you to do everything in your power to make sure our paying guests are well taken care of, understood?" Sir yes sir

AAAHHHHH AMYYYY SHE LOOKS SO ADORABLE WITH THE BIRTHDAY CAKE HEADBAND AND THE DRESS

HELP TAILS IN HIS DETECTIVE OUTFIT HE'S SO CUTEE

oh so it's Amy's birthday party!! Murder mystery theme eh? Someone's an Agatha Christie fan~~

ROUGE AND KNUCKLES YES also Rouge girl you just got on the train don't go stealing gift shop pens just yet lmao

"What cast of characters am i stuck with" OH SHOOT HE KNOWS 🤣

"Why can't i be normal for one second" you and me both Trainee

Also Sonic immediately bolting to get chilli dogs lmao, never change blue gumball dork

WHOOOO LOOKIT ALL OF THEM, ALSO HOLY MOLY BLAZE IS HERE TOO???? COOL COOL COOL 

EHH okay so now i collect the tickets, like a normal person, this wont be an embarrassing trip

"well the birthday discount certainly helped!" You and me both Amy

OH NEW LORE DROPPED, AMY'S A FAN OF TRUE CRIME PODCASTS!!! (I wonder if she would like the Magnus Archives…)

"Here's the key that unlocks any door in the train" hmm seems kinda sus, but oh well birthday girl gets the birthday key

and Blaze is here to grace us with her presence and elegance, reminding why I love her. Love how she just casually tells us that she's visiting from a separate dimension like it's nothing lmao

Sooo Blaze has sweet tooth cannon? Yes.

LMAO TRAINEE NO "Why can't i win in this group"

Rouge darling please give the conductor his money back it's to early to steal anyones lunch money 

Y'know it's a bit awkward knowing that Trainee just realised he's talking t The Sonic The Hedgehog, like my dude did you not know what he looks like? Either way Sonic's pretty chill

"I brought my own sparkle gelatin. It's a jelly that can melt away even the most jaded hearts" Tails imma need you stop being so cute and wholesome for ONE SECOND OKAY I CAN'T TAKE IT ✨🥺

Awww Trainee and Tails are jelly buddies!!!

"Thank goodness someone on this train is normal" buddy wait till you see the kid fly an airplane and can fly with his two tails lmao

Espio why you holding that rose who is it for 👀

DID ESPIO SERIOUSLY READ TRAINEES MIND?? (Edit he did in fact, something about his Ninjutsu or something)

"Can you cling into walls" "i most certainly can" okay just tell the conductor that, I'll now know where to find you then. In the air vents.

"Do you sell gift bags here" ….. shadow you didn't forget to bring Amy a present her birthday party right?

"Robot arm reminding me that one AI from Wall–E, hopefully we're not going to that route 

"Actually, uh Train, the conductor wants me to have the whole plate" lmao you ain't slick Trainee

Okayyy last but not least we have Vector, who does not in fact have his ticket, aanddd now we're supposed to find it

"I wonder what cake topper Sonic picked out for me" "...shoot, i was supposed to give Amy a cake… what am i supposed to do?" Ya done goofed you blue gumball dork

"You don't need to bow everytime you see me" sure Blaze it's not like i was stress responding. definitely.(seriously tho i love her dialogues)

Okay imma take a gamble and ask shadow if he sees any tickets 

"Only three items on the menu..? You don't even have drinks listed" THAT'S WHAT I WAS SAYING!!! Also we only have like three drinks too, water, coffee, and chaos cola

"I'll have to take you up on the coffee soon. Just the beans and A spoon, though" …… shadow um what??? WHAT DO YOU MEAN BEANS AND A SPOON ONLY YOU HOT TOPIC WANNABE??? NOT EVEN WATER OR MILK???

I spent 5 minute hitting every random object where's the ticket – OH WAIT LEFT ARROW

NAPKIN IT'S IN THE NAPKIN

"Lost ticket added to you inventory" YES BUD LET'S GOO

Poor trainee has to double shift on being the microwave expert AND security guard smh, Trainee better has a good paycheck

I'm hoping up on here saying to PLEASE TELL ME WHO DID ALL THE SPRITES IN THE GAME THEY'RE ALL SO WONDERFUL AND EXPRESSIVE MY GOD 

…. Oh. OH!!  SO THAT'S WHY THEY'RE ALL WEARING SPECIFIC CLOTHES. Amy's you nerd she even got them all lore cards i love this girl

So Sonic's role is to be the ship captain. I do wonder why a ship captain of all roles since their in a train setting but ill take

AJDHKJHFKJSLKJFLKJFFKJLA I LOVE THIS SCENE

Oh shadows supposed to be a locksmith?.... I wasn't the only one who thought he was gonna be a barista stationed at the cafe right? My guy might have to dress a little bit more specific for a locksmith

and of course we;ve got our birthday girl as the journalist!

Sweet got a map of the train baby!! Alsooo the lounge looks suspiciously close to the conductor's car…

Well with that out of the way let's get started!!!

Oooohhhh ok cool cool cool got i

"This way there's always a neutral party" yes tails you go you smart cookie

Y'know it's very sweet of all of them to play along with the murder mystery roleplay. Everyone wish they have friends like that

Tails you adorable smart nugget how come you keep getting cuter and adorable by the minute 🥺✨

"My lore is that I'm a nosey person turned journalist" aww c'mon birthday girl don't bring yourself down lol

SUDDEN MYSTERIOUS SHAKE 

Oh wait it's just the train moving

Why is it even shaking THAT much???

Anndd screen goes dark, welp i guess that's it for the dining car scene for now

Aanndd that's all for part 1 hope you guys enjoy and see you guys around part 2!!

[yandere-chocolate]

!! hi! im the anon from the previous ask you answered. i think it'd be best if i dropped all of the questions at once so you can choose which ones you want to answer. who knows? the questions i ask might give you inspiration...

you dont have to answer all of the questions btw!! though, if you want to make separate posts for some of your answers, then feel free to do it~

papilios:

— what are the emotions that make his wings flutter/quiver?

   — does the way it flutter have something to do with the emotion he's feeling or the intensity of it?

— are his wings always still (until he does/feel something that makes it move)... or does it slowly wave/sway a bit when he isnt really doing anything?

lus:

— you mentioned that lus' eye is surrounded by some sort of solid gelatin. if we touch his eye... can he feel it or not?

   — also, what is the texture of it... im curious

solian:

— i love him but i dont have any questions </3 for now...

pulchra:

— how would she react if we were to snuggle beside her lips... since. yknow... lips are soft... and im pretty sure her lips are too...

(Sorry! I didn’t get a notification that you asked something! Anyway, I can answer your questions!^^)

🦋 Papilíos:

-It’s most extreme emotions, but what makes his wings flap the most is happiness or anger. Though, oddly enough, if he is seething, his wing go stiff, almost sharp.

-Somewhat? His wings flutter more & are erratic when he’s really happy.

-Typical, yes. They are still with a few small sways due to the breeze.

👁️ Lus:

-you can feel the outer shell. Otherwise, no, you can’t feel his actual eye.

-you know those cheap bouncy balls?

Feels near exactly like one. Just don’t try to bounce around Lus’ head, she’ll get annoyed.

(Btw, never mentioned this before, but Lus uses They/he/she pronouns.)

🌻 Solian:

-He loves you too

👄 Pulchra:

-To be honest, Pulchra probably wouldn’t catch that her lips were soft & warm to you, so you would leave that cuddle session with giant dark red lipstick marks all over your face. & body. Somehow.

Sorry I keep making Lus boring but keep asking questions! I enjoy answering answering things about my dreamcore world/ocs!^^

[twistedtummies2]

Bad Dreams for Billy

This is a little short snippet I wrote based on a suggestion from @clouddreamer101. It’s a tiny, slightly dark and slightly fluffy ship-fic for my Twisted Wonderland OC, Billy Geant, and his OC, Harmonia A’Capella - based on Willie the Giant and the Singing Harp, respectively. I WAS planning to save major ship writing for these two for some later, larger works, buuut this idea was too nice for me to pass up. XD WARNING: This story gets a liiiiittle bit darker in at least one place than most of my TW pieces do. Just a tiny bit. Nightmares aren’t meant to be pleasant.

It’s mostly cute though, I think. :) Hopefully at least some of you enjoy!

------------------------------------------------------------------------

WUBBLE-WUBBLE. Harmonia A’Capella’s eyes fluttered open. He blinked a few times and scrubbed at his eyes…then let out a soft “eeping” noise as he felt the surface beneath him ripple and quake, as if he were laying upon a bed of gelatin. The Royal Sword student sat up, with a very slight blush. He was resting, dressed in blue and white pajamas, atop a bare belly bigger than any bed. The blonde adjusted his hearing aid and looked up towards the source of the quaking, as well as his host. It was a Friday night, and ever since the pair had gotten into a relationship, Friday nights were always spent in the same place for Harmonia. That place was Billy Geant’s house in the Kingdom Above the Clouds. Sometimes, Billy’s expression when sleeping was a peaceful one, a blissful little smile that spoke of sweet dreams. On frequent nights, the topless giant drooled into his pillow, snoring till the whole room shook. These sights would typically bring a smile, perhaps even a giggle, out of Harmonia. In that moment, however, there was nothing like that. Concern shone in the harp-singer’s eyes, which shimmered like gold coins beneath a wishing well’s translucent pool. The overweight titan’s slumbering face was twisted and contorted into a most unpleasant expression; even with his eyes closed, various emotions, all of them negative, could be detected. Anger, sorrow…but most alarmingly, and most evidently, fear. The fear was accompanied by increasingly violent shuddering, which was the cause of the wobbling of his bare gut. Harmonia quickly pressed down the blush that came from the jiggling beneath his hands and knees. Worry flooded his whole soul. Billy was muttering under his breath…no. Not muttering. Whimpering. Perhaps even pleading. “Billy?” whispered Harmonia. Billy keened and shook his head in his sleep, still trapped in whatever bad dream plagued his brain. “Billy!” Harmonia called out more loudly, and thumped the giant belly beneath him to try and get the ogre’s attention. “Billy, wake up!”

Tears slipped into the corner’s of the giant’s scrunched up eyes. Harmonia made out two words. Just two words, barely comprehensible through the whines and rattling teeth… “Please…don’t…” Harmonia’s expression now took on a hint of fear of its own, and he took a steeling breath. He closed his eyes…and when he opened them, the optic orbs were glowing. Then, a hum…just a hum…flowed from the young music master’s lips. He rubbed the belly beneath him in a soothing manner, as the music thrummed in his chest and whistled through his nostrils. The melody was gentle, but rousing, sort of the opposite of a lullaby. Steadily, the giant’s quaking stilled…then, the whimpers stopped. After a few moments, Harmonia let his eyes return to normal…and at the same time, Billy’s own baby blue eyes opened up. They were brimming with tears as he lifted his head. “My…my treasure?” he peeped, in a voice remarkably small for somebody currently the size of a barge. “Yes. I’m here,” promised Harmonia, with a tender smile. Billy let out a sigh, and then let his head drop back onto the pillow. The sound was shaky, deeply unsettled. He lifted one huge hand to his head, rubbing his scalp as if his skull ached. “Nightmare,” he mumbled. “I guessed that,” Harmonia nodded. “It felt so real,” Billy murmured, and shivered again, the memories still quite fresh. “They usually do,” whispered Harmonia, in a tone that indicated many years of vivid experience. Billy just grunted, and sighed through his nose. A sad look was on his round face as he carefully sat up a bit in bed, using a hand to steady Harmonia and make sure the little one wouldn’t tumble off his belly. “I’m sorry I woke you, Harmonia,” he said, quietly. “It’s no problem, big guy,” the harp assured him, and sat on the stomach of the colossus, cross-legged. He tilted his head and urged gently, “Want to talk about it?” Billy bit his lip…then took a breath. He let it out heavily; Harmonia decided NOT to comment on the smell as it washed over him. There were more important things to worry about now. “I…I woke up. In the dream. And…you weren’t there,” Billy said, in an unusually tiny voice. Harmonia just stared back, evenly. “Is that all?” he asked, in a tone not unlike a doctor consulting their patient. Billy shook his heavy head. “Nuh-uh,” he confirmed, mournfully. “I got out of bed to go look for you. And…and I was s-searching all over my home, I-I even went down into the basement! B-But…but n-no matter where I looked, no matter how loudly I called your name, you weren’t there! You weren’t anywhere!” Harmonia lay down on his own stomach, hugging Billy’s gut as much as he could. “I’m here now,” he said, reassuringly. Billy offered a small, gap-toothed smile, but it only lasted a second or two. “Y-Yeah, but…it got worse…” “How?” “Well…when I realized you weren’t anywhere, I went to find the portal downstairs. To…to where all you little guys live, right? And…and the portal wasn’t anywhere! I scrambled around, I-I even asked other giants if they knew a way down, and none of them would answer me! They wouldnt’t LOOK at me! It was…it was like they didn’t even know I was there. And the more I looked, the smaller I felt…it…it felt like…like everything was GROWING around me. I’ve…I’ve never felt so…so…” He paused, searching for a word. “Insignificant?” suggested Harmonia. “...I was gonna say ‘little,’” Billy said, with a wry little giggle. The humor soon evaporated as he continued: “Finally, I spotted a beanstalk. I was so excited, I nearly knocked it down trying to climb back down to the world below! A-And I didn’t even know where I’d end up, I just had to try and find you! I had to find a way down! I got so excited, because I-I saw that Sage’s Island was j-just below! I was gonna see you again! I was gonna see all my little friends!” A haunted sort of look came to Billy’s eyes. His gaze shifted. He wasn’t looking at Harmonia anymore, and the harp boy could tell. He said nothing. Simply listened and embraced. “Then I got to the bottom,” Billy said, his voice going cold and dead. “And…I saw…footprints. Giant footprints. Everywhere. And I mean…everywhere. Trees were wrecked. There were no animals to be heard or seen or smelled anywhere. It was like another ogre had just gone on a rampage down there. I got worried all over again. I went…I went to my school, hoping I could ask my little friends what happened, a-and maybe get some help finding you.” Billy went very quiet. Harmonia let him be silent for a few moments, before using one hand to stroke the stomach’s curve up and down. “What did you find?” he asked. “Nothing. No one,,” Billy answered, ominously. “Not a sign of life. I couldn’t see or smell anybody. The castle was in ruins. Like it had been hit with a wrecking ball seven times. The statues were rubble. The track field was a barren plain.” “Barren plain?” smirked Harmonia. “Vil’s rubbing off on you again, isn’t he?” His smirk faded as Billy continued, as if Geant had not heard Harmonia. The giant was lost in his own disturbed memory. “I called out every name I could think of, all the students and teachers I knew. No one answered. Not even the Prefect, or Ace, or Deuce, or little Grimmy…I…I started screaming. Just screaming. Just desperate for somebody, ANYBODY, to hear me. I asked where you had all gone…” Billy whimpered louder than ever. The shivering began again, and the tears began to dribble down his cheeks. “Then…then I f-found some water, and…and I looked in…and…and my…m-my…my reflection…my teeth…oh, Gods, there was so much blood…” Billy sobbed and covered his face, breaking down into tears. Harmonia’s face changed to one of pity and deepest concern. He remained silent as Billy cried to himself. He didn’t speak, just let Billy cry. After several moments, Harmonia piped up again. “Billy?” The giant sniffled and uncovered his face. His cheeks were stained with tears, and his eyes were still misty. “Billy…I’m still here,” he vowed. “And I’m not going anywhere. I’d never abandon you. And I’d never think you were ‘little.’ I mean…kind of hard to do that with a super big guy like you, isn’t it?” Billy gave only the tiniest smile a giant could offer in reply. Harmonia smiled back and patted the ogre’s tummy. “I also know you. You wouldn’t hurt me. You wouldn’t hurt any of your friends.” “I could,” Billy responded, then gave a look askance. “I…very nearly have…a couple of times…” “Nearly,” reminded Harmonia. “And all those times were when you weren’t fully in control of your actions, or genuinely just didn’t intend it. Can YOU think of any reason you’d hurt any of us, willingly, now?” Billy bit his lip…then slowly shook his head. “I…I guess not,” he said, sniffling a second time. Harmonia smiled his most encouraging smile, and pressed on Billy’s upper stomach. Somehow, the giant interpreted the action…and lay back, carefully and slowly, resting once more on the bed. With the giant laying down once again, Harmonia slid down the curve of the stomach, and crawled across the big boy’s diaphragm. He rested upon the firm, tough pectorals of the burly big’un, where he could feel Billy’s heartbeat pounding beneath his hands. It was rather rapid. Harmonia rubbed one hand over the giant’s powerful chest, and then lay down, giving a chaste kiss to the crevice between the pectorals. He smirked as he heard Billy peep at the intimate little action; he knew the giant was blushing even without looking up at him. “You’re not a monster, Billy,” he said. “And none of us are leaving. Certainly not me. You’re stuck with me, you big baby. And that’s final.” “You promise?” the giant childishly checked. “Cross my heart, hope to cry, slap your belly ‘cause it’s fine,” twittered the harp, with a wink. Billy let out a soft, wet-sounding giggle…then tenderly cupped a hand over his chest. Over Harmonia. His heartbeat began to steady. “Thank you, my little treasure,” he said, gratefully. “No need for thanks, big boy.” “Still gonna,” Billy insisted. “Eh. Guess I’ve gotta live with it then,” shrugged Harmonia. Another giggle, a bit louder, left Billy’s mouth. There was a pause. Then… “Um…Harmonia?” “Mm-hm?” “Could…could you please…sing for me? I…I think…maybe a lullaby will help me sleep without any more bad dreams?” Harmonia smiled with pure love in his eyes. He snuggled against Billy’s chest, eyes closed as he refocused his power. “My pleasure, Billy,” he said. His eyes regained their golden glow…and soon, Billy Geant found himself slipping into a world of much more beautiful thoughts, as the familiar lullaby wound its way into his mind. No giant could ever have a bad dream when graced by the voice of the magic harp. “In my favorite dream, everyone is so delightful…”

[yungvenuz]

Game of the Year: 2022 Edition

How do I do readmores, again? I haven’t used tumblr in ages.

Oh yeah:

10. Jabroni Brawl Episode 3

Jabroni Brawl Episode 3 is something I've been missing lately: a PvP shooter with absolutely no emphasis on (or seemingly any interest in) balance. Most game modes spawn players in with totally random weapons, letting some people run rampant with instant kill rocket launchers and black hole trip mines while other people are stuck with the gun that makes you fart (which can also instantly kill players, because this is that sort of game). I can't overstate how nice it is to have a pvp game to play with no ranking leaderboard to climb and no marginally improved weapons or cosmetics to grind. The goal is to have fun, and Jabroni Brawl Episode 3′s fun is in its pure chaos.

9. Bean and Nothingness

Bean and Nothingness is a 2019 puzzle game. You have a wand that can be used to zap beans on the ground, and if the beans match one of the recipes in the book you carry with you, a monster is created. Different monsters have vastly different properties: some charge and attack, some explode, some carry, some freeze, some grab, and so on.

When one monster recipe is present in a puzzle, the rules are fairly straightforward. When two, or three, or more are present, the number of mechanical interactions that must be kept in mind quickly grow dizzyingly complex. What happens when a grabber monster grabs a bomb monster? what happens when the bomb monster grabbed by a grabber monster is frozen by a freezy monster before the grabber can finish pulling it in? It's up to you to experiment and find out.

This emphasis on experimentation is what I think sets Bean and Nothingness apart from other puzzle games. The game states explicitly early on that it won't hold your hand through every relevant interaction every monster has. And while games like Stephen's Sausage Roll or Patrick's Parabox depend on discovery of puzzle mechanics that intuitively derive from the world and physics they exist in, Bean and Nothingness is deliberately unintuitive by virtue of all its points of interaction being fanciful imaginary monsters. This makes every new monster discovered in the game a fresh slate from which to build a brand new foundation of knowledge.

8. Boneraiser Minions

Boneraiser Minions is an entry in the very rapidly expanding "Vampire Survivors-like", or "Bullet Heaven" genre, and it's my favorite of the bunch. Instead of wielding weapons yourself, you play as a necromancer who raises various skeletal or demonic peons to do your screen clearing for you, with the usual rapid scaling up to ridiculous hordes of undead smashing everything in a mile radius that the genre is known for.

I'll admit I'm not a huge fan of the bullet heaven genre, but I'm including this entry here anyway because I'm pleased to no end to see Caiysware, the developer of Boneraiser Minions, finally starting to get his due. I've been following their work since 2018's Skelly Selest, and I was immediately charmed by the gothic horror pixel art, inventive design, and deliberately incorrect ye-olde english. Boneraiser is by far their most popular game to date, and I'm hoping that success will carry through to future titles.

7. Elden Ring

My only sop to AAA gaming in this year's list comes from the only place it could have. It's fun, it's beautiful, it's challenging in just the right way.

I do wish it had more plot. I enjoyed the plotlines that had character interactions (volcano manor, Radahn festival), but they were few and far between, and I don't particularly like Fromsoft's archeological approach to worldbuilding. My jaw did genuinely drop as I took the mistwood elevator into the depths and saw just how much more there would be to do, though, so on the list it goes.

6. Streets of Rogue

My favorite roguelike experiences all have to do with moments of cascading failure. Things like running face first into a hydra, so you try to teleport away, but you land on three gelatinous cubes, so you cast a spell of mass confusion, but the confusion affects a nearby wyvern and the wyvern shoots a blast of fire which causes the gelatinous cubes to explode and blows away all your cover and what started as routine dungeon exploration has turned into quaffing every unidentified potion in your inventory on the distant off-chance that one of them is secretly a Potion of Get Me The Fuck Out Of Here Please. That sort of thing.

Streets of Rogue is the first game I've played to bundle that experience into co-op multiplayer. Each player picks a class with unique skillsets and bonus missions on each floor of the game's campaign, and then you're all cut loose to wreak havoc. The end result is extremely chaotic and extremely fun. I didn't even play that much of Streets of Rogue this year, but what I did stood out among the rest of the multiplayer games I've played with friends this year.

PS: Insanely good soundtrack.

5. Tactical Nexus

After two years of completely rewiring my mental state, Tactical Nexus has finally loosened its grip on me enough to let me focus on other games when I want to. It's still my first pick for game to play while listening to podcasts, but I'm only playing one or two hours of it a day instead of four or five.

This year saw a flurry of major updates, including the release of the much anticipated Legacy and Magic systems. These systems provide oblique benefits that allow the completion of the simultaneously released Mystic Gate, which soups up existing towers to much higher level difficulties (and much higher potential score rewards). The game's already nigh infinite replayability has now been brought to an exponentially more complex level, with block tunneling, teleportation gates, and temporary stat boosts changing the calculus for completing levels that were once thought completely solved. I may only have about half the sunstones (score-based permanent resource) of the best players of Tactical Nexus, but I'm still enjoying trying to solve its mysteries each time a new stage is released.

4. Last Call BBS

An anthology collection of games created for a fictional computer operating system by the legendary puzzle game designer Zachtronics. It's no wonder to me that his intended retirement from videogame development didn't stick, because he was clearly having too much fun with it.

20th Century Food Court was my personal favorite as a more traditional programming optimization game, but i also particularly enjoyed Dungeons and Diagrams, a sudoku-like with lots of tricky rules for solving puzzles, and The Forbidden Path, which was even less scrutable than most of Zachtronics' work.

My favorite thing about Last Call BBS is the layers of verisimilitude present in 20th Century Food Court. You play the game through the interface of a fictional old computer operating system similar to a macintosh (layer 1). 20th Century Food Court is a factory programming game about a utopian far flung future society (layer 2) that's attempting to build authentic recreations of 20th century mall food based on their fuzzy memories (layer 3). The layers all slot together perfectly somehow, and the end result is really funny anachronisms, like the burger and fries combo meal that ends up being a fairly accurate burger along with a single giant fry in a cup, or the customers all being annoyed by the coffee and cigarettes chain because the cigarettes aren't pleasant to eat.

3. The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles

I could cite a lot of reasons for putting Great Ace Attorney here, like the writing, or the characters, or the chemistry between the characters, or the lateral thinking needed to solve some of the cases, or the themes, or the humor, which are all excellent. The actual reason it's going to live on in my memory is simple: Barok van Zieks is easily one of the hottest characters in video game history.

2. Last Command

Last Command is a shmup with aesthetic and thematic inspirations from Undertale and Nier Automata, about a society of robots that have long outlasted humanity but still labor under their "last commands", the objectives programmed into them with their creation.

The story is pretty good, but what puts this game on the list is its shmup design, which is fantastic. Last Command is self described as a "Bullet Hell x Snake" game. The bullet hell part is self explanatory: bosses send waves of bullets over the screen that need to be dodged. The snake elements are much more intriguing, in two ways:

1) your character moves on Snake rules with a segmented tail, which means constant orthogonal movement and a variable hitbox. 2) defeating bosses requires picking up ammunition pellets in the form of data files, which further increases the size of your hitbox and requires you to be constantly moving around the screen to actually progress fights.

These two details add a huge amount of nuance to the usual bullet hell dynamic, making patterns that would be fairly simple to dodge under typical bullet hell rules much more interesting.

The boss fights are incredibly well designed, too. Each boss includes a large number of phases (always at least five but usually ten or more) that steadily expand on one or a few specific design themes. The difficulty ramps up satisfyingly, not just inside bosses as new elements are introduced to the fights, but between fights as the game is progressed. The overall experience is really, really fun and intense.

1. Crystal Project

Crystal Project is a job-based team rpg similar to Final Fantasy 3, set in a minecrafty world with extremely open-ended exploration and evolving movement upgrades similar to a metroidvania.

I love everything about this game. Exploring it is just so satisfying, with every nook or cranny you could possibly think to check having something interesting to find. There's piles of secret items, bosses, and quests to find, and even some sequence breaks that can change the order of your progression through the game if you're clever enough.

Environments are highly vertical to take full advantage of the isometric camera, and they look great despite being so blocky. There's a genuine sense of accomplishment to making it to the top of mountain cliffs or across icy ravines that's amplified as you unlock new mounts to explore with. In the end stages of the game, you get to fly directly over

You have a team of four characters for combat, with access to a list of combat jobs that expands as the game progresses, which can be swapped at any time. Only two jobs can be equipped at a time, which allows for inventive synergies without completely breaking the games balance, and each boss has different powers which necessitate different job combos to address properly.

I even found the story and writing charming, even though it definitely wasn't the primary focus. the primary theme of the game is the question of how exactly an adventure is supposed to be appreciated, and the various answers provided by characters throughout are interesting. There's a scene between two supporting characters in the rafters high above a partially constructed city that I found particularly touching.

It's difficult to believe that this is a solo development project, but the vast effort Andrew put into Crystal Project shows. I think everyone should play this game.